Carl Luna is a professor of Political Science at San Diego Mesa College and a lecturer on politics and international political economy at the University of San Diego.
Carl writes for CityBeat semi-regularly. Look for him at the CityBeat website or in the print edition, from any of our 1,400 boxes around town. New editions available every Wednesday.

I’ve followed with some interests efforts of the San Diego City Council, spearheaded by council newbie Todd Gloria, to balance homeowner property rights with community interests. Preservationists and residents of “Historic” neighborhoods like Gloria’s own Hillcrest worry that redevelopment unchecked by regulations to provide for continuity in architectural design can mar the rhythm and harmony of neighborhoods long established. I can understand their concern. A glass and stucco modern apartment building replacing a Craftsman bungalow can certainly alter the unique character of a street. Increasing densities changes the dynamics of a neighborhood, from impacting the use of public spaces to impacting socio-demography; a neighborhood of single family homes becomes a mixed-use hodgepodge of single-resident apartment dwellings. And the essence of community and tradition that brought many to homestead and rejuvenate older neighborhoods disappears.

Yet my ultimate sympathies lie with the property owner and the right of every man and woman to be lord of their own little real estate castle. Too often new regulations are placed on residential real estate to achieve a perceived public good while placing too onerous a cost on individual property owners. If a community wants to be rezoned from an R-3 or such down to R-1 to prevent increased density, or the community wants to change FARs to limit the size of new or remodel construction to keep a “quaint” “village” feel, more power to them. But if these changes means a property owner can no longer build out the property as they were originally entitled to do under the old rules and this results in a reduction of the property’s value, than some consideration to fair-market compensation needs be given to the original owners. Otherwise these regulatory actions constitute, in my mind, an unfair “taking” of personal property by the community.

Let me share yet another tale from the Luna family archives. Some years ago, my wife and I found ourselves living in a two-bedroom (read: one regular bedroom, one broom-closet bedroom), one-bath house with three kids and a fourth on the way. We wanted to remodel the 1911 stucco bungalow to add a second story with additional beds and baths. By the time we calculated costs, it was half again as much money to add on to the old structure, which had sagging walls, a crumbling foundation, zero in the way of insulation or modern windows (you’d walk out of the house, which was maybe 50 degrees inside, wearing sweaters at 9 a.m. to discover it was 85 outside; reverse that at night). The architects said we’d basically have to completely rebuild the foundation and exterior walls to take the stress of a new second floor. Ultimately, we decided to start new, from the ground up. When we took the plans for the new house to the local planning committee, several of the members expressed concern that we were demolishing a house with classic style and historical significance. One of the panel members waxed on about the beveled-glass-diamond-pane windows in the front of the house and other classical adornments—until I informed her the glass was plain pane, the front door basically painted plywood and the other “ornamentation” near balsa-wood add-ons. The house was one of dozens built slap-dash out of stucco, spit and old board in the area for summer rentals in the beach community; only later did they become permanent dwellings. The only thing Craftsman about it was that it took a craftsman to keep it habitable. We eventually got our plan through the board and today live in a larger home that, with better windows, insulation, new pipes and heating system, has a better environmental footprint than did the old clunker.

That’s my beef with many attempts to turn people’s private property into a public good. Just because a house is old doesn’t mean it is a classic worthy of preservation. It is often cheaper and more environmentally sustaining to go new with green products and technologies than trying to turn an early-20th-century pig’s ear into a 21st-century silk home. Moreover, the cost of preservation must be weighed against other social benefits of redevelopment, such as increasing “inner-burban” densities to reverse suburban sprawl, making homes more affordable to middle and working-class homeowners and the like.

Moreover, it’s been my observation that idea of community “preservation” has often been used as a code word for community exclusion: keeping the right sort of people in and the wrong sort out of neighborhoods. It’s also been my observation that, in an interesting irony, it is often wealthier and politically more conservative neighborhoods that are most actively willing to use the heavy hammer of the state in their own backyards to force compliance with their own views of community on fellow property owners while decrying the power of the state in other aspects of life.

But, then, what is life without its little ironies?

Meanwhile, my empathies lie with Todd Gloria and the council in trying to thread the needle between public good and private rights. Balancing the two is one of the greatest challenges in a democracy, where the many can have a propensity to achieve gains at the expense of the few. A person’s home is her castle. If the community wants to demand that castle come with cedar shingles and box windows, the community should provide something in the way of fair compensation to castle dwellers in return.

Oh, and I noticed walking in and out of the hall that the Civic Theater is going big time Andrew Llyod Weber this summer. Phantom of the Opera as a metaphor for the fall campaign? Cats as a metaphor for Democratic party infighting? Hope you enjoy musicals, San Diego.

So, what is it with Ron Paul supporter? Are they: a) really enthusiastic and committed; b) really have no lives; c) are too poor to afford cable so they don’t know their candidate isn’t a candidate for anything anymore; d) are nuts; e) are really nuts; or f) all of the above? Me, I think it is ditto the last two in spades. There were probably as many signs being waved for the Man from Texas via Outer Space as for any of the other (real) candidates.

I enjoyed the Democratic moment when Mike Lumpkin supporters kept screaming “I Like Mike” all night around Duncan Hunter the elder and Little Duncan D. The father-son duo seemed to take it in good humor and stride. Of course, tomorrow Duncan senior will have the Lumpkinites rounded up and sent to Gitmo. My big question is, after this is all over and Mike Lumpkin is soundly thumped by Duncan the younger come fall (and who said America doesn’t like old world style dynasties…), will the Lumpkinites meet up with the Paulies and form their own desperate supporters support group?

(Note to San Diego Democrats: might you get your act together and run the right candidate in the right District – like Mike “I Can Kill You With My Pinkie Because I Was A Seal, Buckoo” Lumpkin, who should have been run in the 50tht against Brian “Never Served But Sure Did Surf A lot, Dude” Bilbray as opposed to Francine “Once A Schoolboard Candidate Always Campaign Like a Schoolboard Candidate” Busby?)

Meanwhile, the excitement level in the hall after nine reached the fevered pitch of an Hometown Buffet’s on senior all-you-can-eat fish night. Oh what a fascination an election that generates a 40% turnout rate has on the voice box of vox populi. Note to San Diego: if you really do want elections that generate a somewhat demographic representation of the city, how about scheduling municipal primaries the same day as the big Presidential primaries, whatever day that might be come spring 2012?

And what is it about Election central that brings out enough quirky characters to fill a half dozen David Mamet plays? Like the 60 something rail-thin biker dude sporting the obligatory American flag bandana around his gray ponytailed head? Or the legions of Libertarians consisting largely of twenty and thirty something white males who look like they just came from a Bund meeting? Though you have to hand it to the Libertarians. What other party would run a candidate for Congress with the handle Dan “Frodo” Litwin. (Who got, as of this writing, 59 of the 25,000 votes cast in the 51st District—presumably from free market/small government hobbits).

Most unfortunate statement of the evening: Mike Aguirre mouthpiece Dan McGrath saying, when asked why Mike didn’t spend more money and campaign more for the primary, that Mike tends to fund his own campaigns and has to be careful with his money because he has to plan for his retirement. Uh-huh. Like from being City Attorney which, given that challenger Jan Goldsmith is ahead of him in the returns and given that the other 40% of the vote that didn’t go to him or Judge Jan went to candidates united in only their mutual desire to see him bounced out of office, means that unless the erstwhile embattled CA actually does start to try and mount a modicum of real campaign come the fall is a likely outcome come December?